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LibriVox recording of The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine.
The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible. Published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, it was a bestseller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely-inspired text. Yet, The Age of Reason is not atheistic: it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God. (Summary by Wikipedia)
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Download M4B (213MB)
The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible. Published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, it was a bestseller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely-inspired text. Yet, The Age of Reason is not atheistic: it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God. (Summary by Wikipedia)
For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.
For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.
Download M4B (213MB)
Reviews
Reviewer:
mkstam
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September 1, 2015
Subject: Painful
Subject: Painful
While the content is great, the execution of the audio is just painful. I can't get through it. And I can't believe this rendition got past the editors.
Reviewer:
librivoxbooks
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May 23, 2015
Subject: Alternative version
Subject: Alternative version
You may like to try LibriVox's second version of this book: http://archive.org/details/ageofreason_1302_librivox
Reviewer:
clarkfk
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favorite -
May 19, 2015
Subject: Ugh.
Subject: Ugh.
I'm going to be brutally honest here. I love Librivox and I love that they make classics available for free to listen to. For the most part, I've gotten wonderful readers. But this guy completely has ruined the experience for me. He has absolutely NO inflections. Inconsistent volume and sound quality. Absurd pauses. Mispronunciations. It makes me angry, because I have read other things by Paine and have discovered that I quite like his writing. This reader makes it exceedingly difficult to continue. I think I may read the book myself and submit for a replacement. I mean, I can't possibly do worse than this guy...
Reviewer:
TheGreatAgnostic
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favoritefavorite -
January 17, 2012
Subject: Mixed Feelings
Subject: Mixed Feelings
While I applaud the narrator's courage and perseverance, his inflection is non-existent and the repeated mispronunciations of multiple words, indeed even somewhat common words is more than I can take. Enthusiasm and spirit is severely lacking and the listener is hard pressed to avoid falling off into a bored state of borderline sleep.
This timeless and invaluable work is from one of America's greatest thinkers and writers, Thomas Paine. Surely he deserves the kind of attention to detail as he himself would demand. I think that while he would be appreciative of the effort, he would cringe at quality of this narration of his incredibly detailed and eloquent study of the Bible.
This timeless and invaluable work is from one of America's greatest thinkers and writers, Thomas Paine. Surely he deserves the kind of attention to detail as he himself would demand. I think that while he would be appreciative of the effort, he would cringe at quality of this narration of his incredibly detailed and eloquent study of the Bible.
